MQA AND UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP TO COLLABORATE
ON ADVANCING HI-RES ON-DEMAND STREAMING
Hi-Res Audio Movement Gains Significant Momentum
LONDON AND SANTA MONICA, 16 FEBRUARY 2017 - Music technology company MQA and Universal Music Group (UMG), the world-leader in music-based entertainment, announced today that the two companies have entered into a multi-year agreement that will encode UMG's extensive catalogue of master recordings in MQA's industry-leading technology, promising to make some of the world's most celebrated recordings available for the first time in Hi-Res Audio streaming.
Today's announcement comes shortly after the launch of the cross-industry marketing campaign "Stream the Studio", launched at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and spearheaded by The DEG: the Digital Entertainment Group, to raise awareness of the advantages of Hi-Res Audio streaming.
Mike Jbara, CEO of MQA, commented, "We're very pleased to be working with Universal Music to achieve our goal of moving studio-quality sound into the mainstream. Universal's timeless catalogue and impressive artist roster will fuel music streaming services worldwide and enable the premium listening experience for all music fans."
Michael Nash, Executive Vice President of Digital Strategy at UMG, said, "The promise of Hi-Res Audio streaming is becoming a reality, with one service already in the market and several more committed to launching this year. With MQA, we are working with a partner whose technology is among the best solutions for streaming Hi-Res Audio, and one that doesn't ask music fans to compromise on sound quality for convenience. We're looking forward to working with Mike and his team at MQA to make our industry-leading roster of artists and recordings available to music fans in the highest quality possible."
MQA - the award-winning technology which delivers master quality audio in a file small enough to stream - debuted on global music and entertainment platform, TIDAL, at the beginning of this year, and is also available internationally on several music download services.
Posted on: 16 February 2017 by Huge
Not surprised at all.
MQA is going to appeal to large music related companies as it promotes a sort of "confidence tie-in approach" to keep listeners away from smaller independents who can't afford the MQA licence fees - and this is designed to work psychologically even if the independent's 24/192 product is technically superior to mass market MQA product!
See this thread... https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...mqa-is-bad-for-music
P.S. Edit: In fact I hope that all MQA really achieves is an increase in the availability of 24/192 LPCM material!
Posted on: 16 February 2017 by ChrisSU
I seem to remember that when MP3 and AAC arrived, they told us it was so clever that there would be no loss of sound quality. So they pretty much have to admit they were lying now in order to justify MQA. Plus ca change.......
Posted on: 16 February 2017 by Huge
Chris, you forgot to mention that Philips and Sony said that CD promised "Perfect sound... for ever".
Neither part of that claim has turned out to be true!
Posted on: 16 February 2017 by GregW
During today's announcement from MQA and Universal, there was an interesting titbit from Universal's Michael Nash:
We don’t want to step across announcements that other companies will make, but we think that we could safely guide you in the expectation that there will probably be half a dozen services in the marketplace by the end of the year delivering this format.
Today's news will notch up the pressure on hardware manufacturers to implement support for MQA. It's hard to imagine Naim offering Spotify and Tidal and not support the 'highest quality' content from both services.
Posted on: 17 February 2017 by Huge
During today's announcement from MQA and Universal, there was an interesting titbit from Universal's Michael Nash:
We don’t want to step across announcements that other companies will make, but we think that we could safely guide you in the expectation that there will probably be half a dozen services in the marketplace by the end of the year delivering this format.
Today's news will notch up the pressure on hardware manufacturers to implement support for MQA. It's hard to imagine Naim offering Spotify and Tidal and not support the 'highest quality' content from both services.
That's true in a sense...
Naim focus on providing the highest quality sound from the highest quality sources first, and then optimist lower quality sources after that. In other words Naim will continue to primarily optimise their streamers for UPnP / DLNA sources (these still being higher quality than internet streaming, due to timing constraints), and only consider MQA after that - assuming that the added complexity doesn't compromise the UPnP performance.
Posted on: 17 February 2017 by ssmith
During today's announcement from MQA and Universal, there was an interesting titbit from Universal's Michael Nash:
We don’t want to step across announcements that other companies will make, but we think that we could safely guide you in the expectation that there will probably be half a dozen services in the marketplace by the end of the year delivering this format.
Today's news will notch up the pressure on hardware manufacturers to implement support for MQA. It's hard to imagine Naim offering Spotify and Tidal and not support the 'highest quality' content from both services.
That's true in a sense...
Naim focus on providing the highest quality sound from the highest quality sources first, and then optimist lower quality sources after that. In other words Naim will continue to primarily optimise their streamers for UPnP / DLNA sources (these still being higher quality than internet streaming, due to timing constraints), and only consider MQA after that - assuming that the added complexity doesn't compromise the UPnP performance.
But equally they are a commercial enterprise and need to attract new money. Most younger people don't own a CD let alone rip them and maintain a Nas or pay to download HD files, pretty much spotify etc or nothing.
I'm sure Mqa is just hype but after the new uniti range debacle it has meant that I will try and have a listen to some other products that incorporate it. Most people say Airplay is poor quality but Naim have delayed to get this implemented in the new range.
Basically I think prospective profits will decide its implementation.
Posted on: 17 February 2017 by Huge
Absolutely in the Uniti range, as these are an introductory series and have known SQ compromises anyway.
In the core business of the Classic range, where quality is the focus, only if it doesn't compromise performance in UPnP or DAC usage.
This spit strategy is likely to give the best ROI anyway as it matches customers expectations on SQ vs feeping creaturism.
